Writing the Story of Christmas

On the first day of Advent, Patricia opened a new topic in Sunday School appropriate to the season—the birth of baby Jesus. First she explained how the Christmas story was really a combination of elements taken from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. On the eraser board, she laid out what each Gospel contributed to what has become the Christmas Pageant. 

On the Matthew side of the ledger was the conception of Jesus; Joseph’s dilemma over what to do with Mary, given that she’s already pregnant. Mary has no speaking part. She bears a son. Wise men come from the east bringing three gifts, which we now extrapolate to mean “three wise men,” though it doesn’t say that. There are no angels or shepherds. There is a star. Joseph and Mary don’t travel to Bethlehem on a donkey—they’re already there. The magi arrive to adore the baby, bringing, yes, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Matthew says the star was actually over a house, not a stable. The wise men flee from Herod, who had pretty much told them to go seek the baby Jesus out, and so then there’s the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem—in other words, all male children two years old and under, were put to death. Definitely not part of the Christmas Pageant.

I need to pause a moment. These points, as with all great bodies of points in Sunday School class, were certainly not made without interruption or commentary from us in the peanut gallery. Patricia gave us fair warning though--we weren’t there is judge the veracity of any of it--virgin birth, the number of wise men, none of it. If it is important to a person’s faith to believe in a virgin birth, she said, why would you want to poke holes in that faith? 

Despite the two stories, which don’t mirror each other in the details, perhaps the bigger point is what the whole thing means--that this is the season of hope? Besides, there’s a practical reason for leaving the Christmas Pageant just as it is--with the wise men from the one story and the shepherds from the other--there are enough parts for all of the children. And of course, nobody argued with that.

So, the remaining pieces of the story, on the other side of the ledger, on the big white eraser board in the classroom, were from Luke. It begins with the conception of John the Baptist to Zacharias and Elizabeth, who are old and childless. Zacharias doesn’t believe the Angel Gabriel, who tells him he’ll have a son. So he’s struck dumb during the pregnancy. Meanwhile, Gabriel visits Mary and tells her that she’s with son and that her cousin Elizabeth has also conceived a son, even in her old age. For God nothing is impossible, says Gabriel. Mary visits Elizabeth, sings the Magnificat. John the Baptist is born. Zacharias gets his tongue back and names the baby. Joseph takes Mary to Bethlehem to register for the census, ordered by Caesar Augustus. There “she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room at the inn.” An angel appears to some lowly shepherds in a field and tells them about the baby. And they go to Bethlehem and find Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. 

Now, the point of all this may not be apparent. There’s something I left out--a friend of mine who has recently made noises about joining the church. This friend has also made it clearly and painfully known that she does not exactly believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. And of course, as Betty said this morning as we were walking out of class, although in her life, she’s been a Baptist and a Catholic, she finally became an Episcopalian, a denomination in which it’s quite okay to both have questions and voice them aloud. This is, after all, the church that seeks to balance scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.

But there still are, I think, some irrefutable beliefs. And for those, I’ll borrow from Patricia’s sermon last Sunday: 

“We begin Advent with the reality of the direness of our situation, but also with the attitude of hope and expectancy that God’s promises of justice and righteousness will be fulfilled.

“We believe, as our collect for the first Sunday of Advent says, that with God’s help we can cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

“And we remind ourselves that Jesus is continually coming into the world bringing peace and love and justice and hope.”